This invention is generally in the field of tissue characterization and sampling, and relates to a device and method for tissue sampling for pathological analysis.
Surgical pathology is a very important field directed at definitive diagnosis and confirmation of existence or lack of disease types. Performed by skilled pathologists, surgical pathology involves two main stages of examination: (1) macroscopic gross examination and processing, and (2) histopathology, which generally consist of the following. Macroscopic gross examination and processing of surgical specimens (e.g. biopsies) is typically carried out by the bare eye, in order to assess the general macroscopic characteristics of the specimen, and to prepare and process the specimen for histopathology analysis. A set of tissue blocks, typically postage stamp-sized portions of tissue, are gathered to be processed and tissue from these blocks is transferred to slides for the second examination stage (microscopy). Histopathology is the microscopic examination (under a microscope) of histological sections of tissue specimen acquired in the gross examination stage and placed onto glass slides. As only a minority of the tissue from a large specimen can reasonably be subject to microscopic examination, the success of the final histological diagnosis is highly dependent on the skill of the professional performing the gross examination and processing.
The outcome of the above described medical diagnosis procedure is formulated as a pathology report describing the histological findings and the opinion of the pathologist. For instance, in the case of cancer, this represents the tissue diagnosis required for most treatment protocols. Regarding removal of cancer, the pathologist indicates whether the surgical margin is cleared, or not cleared (residual cancer is left behind). The whole examination is significantly time-consuming, and as indicated above, is occasionally subjective and depends heavily on the level of skill the involved professional possesses.